If the music you like to listen to sounds more “Mississippi Delta” than “New York City,” you may want to make your way down to the Willamette for this year’s Waterfront Blues Festival.

Each year, this outdoor festival draws thousands of people to watch five days of blues in a benefit for the Oregon Food Bank. Last year, the festival raised $545,000 and 103,500 lbs of food.

Notable Portland jazz/blues artists that are performing this year include Reggie Houston, LaRhonda Steele, and Linda Hornbuckle. There will also be a memorial concert for Portland-based blues-man Paul Delay, who passed away earlier this year.

Admission is (suggested) $8 and two cans of nonperishable food.

The entire schedule can be viewed at the festival website.

(Image via waterfrontbluesfest.com)

Dan Balmer and Clay Giberson’s jazz fusion project “Go By Train” has been performing regularly around the Northwest for the past four years. GBT has two albums out - the appropriately named debut album “Go By Train” from 2004, and “Transportation,” the band’s second effort that was released earlier this year.  Dan and Clay have been with the project since the beginning while Micah Kassell (who appears on both albums) and Drew Shoals have each spent time holding down the drum chair.

Go By Train shows up one or two Mondays a month at Jimmy Mak’s, where Dan hosts his weekly series. Below, you can find live videos taken at the club, with the band playing material from both albums.

Read the rest of this entry »

This Friday (7/6) at Jimmy Mak’s, Chris Mosley will release his newest album on Diatic Records. The CD features Mosley on guitar, Tim Wilcox on saxophone, Bill Athens on bass, and Randy Rollofson on drums. Their quartet will play the first set, starting at 8 PM. Minors are welcome for this set.

During the second set, Ben Darwish will lead a quartet featuring Drew Shoals on drums, John Nastos on saxohpone, and Eric Gruber on bass.